If you are talking about self-defence using Taiji principles the answer is definitely `yes'. Push hands is to acquire 2 very important skills in taiji fighting. First, ting jin (hearing) and tung jin (understand jin). This ability enable taiji expert to know and control his opponent effortlessly. Secondly, it trained taiji players to use the whole body strength, qi and yi (know his own strength) and know how to manipulate and neautralized opponent's strength (explore weakness), hence, enable him to use softness against hardness.

Taiji fighting strategy requires taiji players to be able to totally control and defeat the enermy at the moment of first contact. This high skills require very good tung jin and ability to stick and adhere (lien jin). Almost all Taiji power and techniques are build on the foundation of the ability to `sung' (loose) and tung jin (understand) which can only be acquired from push hands. So push hands is definitely a very important part of taiji fighting trainings.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by CheeFattTaichi:<B> If you are talking about self-defence using Taiji principles the answer is definitely `yes'. Push hands is to acquire 2 very important skills in taiji fighting. First, ting jin (hearing) and tung jin (understand jin). This ability enable taiji expert to know and control his opponent effortlessly. Secondly, it trained taiji players to use the whole body strength, qi and yi (know his own strength) and know how to manipulate and neautralized opponent's strength (explore weakness), hence, enable him to use softness against hardness.

Taiji fighting strategy requires taiji players to be able to totally control and defeat the enermy at the moment of first contact. This high skills require very good tung jin and ability to stick and adhere (lien jin). Almost all Taiji power and techniques are build on the foundation of the ability to `sung' (loose) and tung jin (understand) which can only be acquired from push hands. So push hands is definitely a very important part of taiji fighting trainings.

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I feal that ting jin & tung jin are the basic skills that one should obtain from push hands.

after practicing taijiquan i can say, during free fighting (w/friends) i am starting to look for those things (spacificly ting jin & tung jin). But the ability to control the opponent has been there before push hands. However contole of ones self is mutch harder to attain.

this looseness you speak of (if it means relaxation in combat) comes from combat practice

“...The Tree has first to go deep into the Earth;The deeper the Roots go, the higher the branches raise.If you want to touch the stars with your Flowers then you have to go to the very rock bottom of the earth.Roots and Flowers are like two Wings:If you have both wings then the whole Sky is yours...” Osho

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Zak:<B> I feal that ting jin & tung jin are the basic skills that one should obtain from push hands.

after practicing taijiquan i can say, during free fighting (w/friends) i am starting to look for those things (spacificly ting jin & tung jin). But the ability to control the opponent has been there before push hands. However contole of ones self is mutch harder to attain.

this looseness you speak of (if it means relaxation in combat) comes from combat practice

thanks 4 reply,keep M coming, -Zak-</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Looseness or `sung' does not come from combat experience. It comes from inner enlightenment of knowing your body and knowing how energy and force flows within. Combat experience only gives you more calmness and not easily excited which would help but it is still far from the taiji requirement of looseness. Taiji looseness (sung) is to arrive at internal hardness and neijin (internal force). Controlling the opponent too is not the normal kind of control when we engage in sparring. Control here refers to very strong `lien jin' (sticking force) where when contact your hand sticks to your opponent like a glue ad no matter how hard he try, he cannot break free. Then this sticking force is combing with `tung jin' where you break his strength by destroying his root. Therefore, in the simplest situation when opponent punch and we ward-off. Our ward-off is a defence and offence fused together, at one hand we deflect his punch but on another, the deflecting hand also sticks to his punching hand and overwhelm him with `peng Jin' that breaks his strength and root, renders him helpless and unable to defend nor attack any further.

My opinion as to a proper answer to this question is probably slightly different than that of others.My answer to this question is both yes and no.Yes, you will need to learn push hands before you begin application training if you wish to learn to apply against others with TCC principles during combat.No, you do not need to learn push hands to be able to apply the form movements of TCC against another person martially.

In the first answer you are striving to learn how to properly apply listening, yielding, following, sticking (adhering) and controlling principles properly to the forms of TCC. If this is your goal, then push hands training with a qualified instructor who can teach you these things is vital.In the second answer anyone can use the form movements of TCC very well if simply using brute strength with no internal principles is all they're looking to do. The form movements can be applied using harder, more clumsy principles against most anyone with no real martial arts training and they can be quite effective this way. If this is what you seek then simply pick up a book describing the uses of each form against an opponent, find a willing partner and begin to apply against each other. You should have some good success in using the basic movements in a clumsy, hard style type of fashion and this will probably be good enough against most opponents you may meet.

Speaking of Push Hands,I feel interested because almost every day, I push hands with two or three friends.Sometimes, I will visit some good push-hand guys somewhere else. Push-hand already becomes an interesting part of my life. From the push-hand, I can understand myself and my opponent. Every time we push, we find some ancient Taichi theories clearer and clearer. We understand we're getting improved and there is still room to get ourselves improved. Our physical condition is clearly becoming better and better. As for self-defence, I feel confident that it's so easy to control my opponent by yi ,originally from the waist loosen. Getting out the temptation of the winning, we can enjoy the ting jin and discover the truth and then tung jin.

I want to thank Taichi with all my heart. Of course, many thanks to the ancient philosipher and my master.

Depends on the type of practitioner one is or seeks to become. Most Americans have no use for it since it is use as daoyin exercise type movement. Even the self defense mechanics of shuaijiao are far better than tuishou itself.

For my training, tuishou is just an ecxcellent way of grasping the proper positioning even with using daoyin concepts.

Push-hands has another function. Through touching, sticking, adhering, and following,we forget all about this push, and then the combat form appear naturally and by chance. We enlighten ourselves that Taichi combat form (every gestures) can be used freely in any fighting at will.

You can fight without push hands, no doubt about it. But if you want to fight using taiji principles, PH is important. It trains you to be song, sensitive and react automatically. This gives you advantages in close counter combat. 2 months ago I visited another taiji school run by an older sifu and he was pushing hand with a new student who was a Kendo 3rd Dan black belt. The student suddenly steps into the sifu's centerline using Kendo sword attacking technique and the old sifu automatically reacted by turning his body and delivered a slap to this guy's face causing bleeding to his lips. Its ugly but years of PH enables the old sifu to react automatically in close combat.

I did sparring with my students too and many are Karate, TKD, Aikido and Shaolin exponents. Whenever I am able to close-in on them, they usually get hits several times before they can do anything, all these are the results of push hands.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by cheefatt taichi:<B>You can fight without push hands, no doubt about it. But if you want to fight using taiji principles, PH is important. It trains you to be song, sensitive and react automatically. This gives you advantages in close counter combat. e and the old sifu automatically reacted by turning his body and delivered a slap to this guy's face years of PH enables the old sifu to react automatically in close combat.

So, push hands do help in combat. </B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Its just like driving a manual car, its has become a second nature to you, you automatically change the gear of your car,and you can drive home without knowing which route you take just now.Its just like fencing when you parrey you will repouse. means when you block you will attack automatically. you will be able to feel the force from your opponent and receive it and response back.

I think it is possible - and have read that the brutal training of Shao Hou and Pan Hou did not feature much pushing hands.

I can relate to the training methodology and the results it brings. Intense hard work breaks down body armour and can develop a taiji body as well as the soft / open training of YCF, in fact if you are striking your students you can break up their deep rooted tensions in a very direct way.

Being struck also has the effect of teaching subtle internals without it having to be explained. I was told the origin of the phrase 'Jing stays in the family' and 'Jing has to be felt' is a reflection of this. I think this would be how the 'ting' and 'dong' would be developed - the experience of fighting replacing the controlled arena of push hands.

I also think this difference in methods - slow/soft as opposed to hard/fast (slow being an even pace - soft being a 'gentle' training method) - is the reason that some people see the YCF method as a loss of skills rather than a change in direction.

I think that the development of taiji skills through a fuller curriculum meant that people could fight (in differing ways) depending on their ability. Thus the references to Chin Na, etc that turns up in some of the old Yang Texts.

The four corners fit into this too - they are a more basic skill. The advance skill as we have seen is through softness and emptiness to develop intercepting jing. Clearly this, and the skills that go with it, are the foundation of the great stories of the Yangs.

I think what YCF did was take this higher level skill set and make it the sole focus of the training - thus we find ourselves at a position where Taiji people can't fight for toffee for a VERY long time. Many people seem to be trying to put back in the middle stages and train vigorously again - I think a lot of them have lost faith that the end result comes if you are diligent in the soft training method.

The worst situation is that the two get mixed up - people are neither putting in the suffering and hard work to develop taiji the hardway - but are also not giving up on the use of force to approach the higher level though softness. It's a shame as it will really slow down their progress.

There is also a fair bit of historical quibbiling that YCF was unskilled compared to his older siblings, but providing he laid down the correct training approach it doesn't really matter. Certainly there are a few people who have come from his line who have reached very high levels.

What I find confusing is that there are still so many unknowns, so much confusion in people about what they are doing and where it is going, so much contradiction and so many poor attitudes to the sharing of knowledge!